Cardinals 13, Astros 6: One more game, one last chance for Astros to be spoilers

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The Astros, with no apparent malice aforethought, played the role of spoiler for their fan base the entire baseball season. The Astros, with all the malice aforethought they can muster, have one last chance to spoil almost an entire season’s work by the St. Louis Cardinals.

If a 13-6 defeat against the Cardinals is any indication, the Astros will head into their final battle outgunned and out-armed.

Ambushed in the early innings, in apparent danger of losing to a last-place team for the second consecutive night, the Cardinals came back with a vengeance to keep their playoff hopes alive and well. The Astros built a 5-0 lead, squandered all of it, rallied to retake the lead and then retreated again. Minute Maid Park masher Lance Berkman expedited the Cardinals comeback with three hits – the latter one starting a four-run, go-ahead rally in the seventh inning – against the team that drafted him in 1997 and employed him until July 2010. On top of three hits and a walk, Berkman scored three runs and is batting .485 (16-for-33) and slugging 1.061 at Minute Maid this season.

“They didn’t give up in the whole month of September,” said Astros right fielder Brian Bogusevic, who had two hits, scored twice and threw out two Cardinals on the bases. “They’re not going to give up because they’re down a couple of runs.”

A three-run homer one inning later by Allen Craig, who entered the game because starting left fielder Matt Holliday left with a hand injury, made it easy for a crowd of 22,021 to forget that the Astros ever had the lead. At 89-72, the Cardinals enter tonight’s regular season finale tied with the Atlanta Braves for the National League wild-card berth. The Braves relinquished control of the wild-card race with a 7-1 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies.

“I think they could kind of smell it,” said Astros reliever Wesley Wright, who allowed the hit that drove in the go-ahead run in the seventh. “They saw the Braves lost, and the momentum kind of swung in their favor. Good teams, when they can smell a chance to make an impact, they’re going to do that.”

For all the good it did the Astros, they had as many hits against Cardinals righthander Jake Westbrook (seven) as outs (seven). Carlos Lee, who is 18-for-40 (.450) off Westbrook, led off the second with a single and came around to score for a 1-0 lead.

An intentional walk to Lee was a part of a four-run rally in the third. The free pass to Lee came on the heels of an infield single by Jose Altuve and a double by Bogusevic, loading the bases with one out. Brett Wallace made the Cardinals pay with his sixth hit in 11 career at-bats against Westbrook – a two-run single to right. Four pitches later, Jimmy Paredes bashed a two-run triple to center that made the score 5-0.

One of the reasons the Cardinals hadn’t scored to that point was that Bogusevic threw out David Freese trying to score from third on a fly ball to right in the first inning. Another reason is that rookie righthander Henry Sosa limited the Cardinals to two hits the first three innings. Sosa fell apart in the fourth, retiring only one batter and allowing five runs. Three walks, singles by Berkman and Yadier Molina and a three-run double by Skip Schumaker tied the score at five.

“I wanted it so bad,” Sosa said. “That’s me needing to be more relaxed sometimes.”

Reliever David Carpenter got the final two outs of the inning, the latter on a strikeout of Freese, and shut down the Cardinals through the sixth. That bought the Astros time to regain the lead with a one-run rally in the fifth that offered the promise of so much more off lefthander Mark Rzepszynski. A single by Bogusevic and walks by Lee and Wallace loaded the bases with nobody out, but a double-play grounder by Paredes kept the Astros from being fruitful and multiplying.

The squandered opportunities came crashing down on the Astros in the seventh. Enerio Del Rosario (0-3) retired the first two batters before allowing a single to Berkman, a double to right-center by Craig that tied the score at six and a walk to Molina. Enter Wright, who had allowed three hits in 32 (.094) at-bats in his previous 19 appearances. Pinch-hitter Ryan Theriot laced a two-run triple to center and Nick Punto doubled to left to make the score 9-6, and the Cardinals didn’t let up against relievers Fernando Rodriguez and Juan Abreu.

“I felt the same as I did the majority of the time I’ve been here, Wright said. “They just executed better than I did. They’re a good team. They can smell a chance to be in the postseason, and they’re going for it. If they get in, they’re going to be a hot team.”

Of course, the Astros have one last chance to be spoilers for somebody besides their own fans.

“All hands on deck,” Astros manager Brad Mills said. “We’ll go after it the best we can.”